Teenagers are rewriting the rules of the news

THE PRESIDENT of El Salvador gets it. Addressing the UN General Assembly in September, Nayib Bukele paused to take a self-portrait at the rostrum. “Believe me, many more people will see that selfie once I share it than will listen to this speech,” he said, adding, “I hope I took a good one.”

Marianne Williamson, a New-Agey type running for the Democratic presidential nomination in America, gets it. Asked after a debate in July whether it went well, she replied that she would only know for sure “later, when I see the memes”. So does Andrew Yang, another Democratic no-hoper. His first big interview was with Joe Rogan, an internet-famous comedian with 6.96m subscribers on YouTube. After it was viewed 1m times over the course of two days, Mr Yang wrote that his campaign could be divided into “BR (Before Rogan) and AR (After Rogan)”.